Snowfall On Haven Point

“That’s not very safe, is it?” the sheriff said gruffly. “You should always wear a helmet when you’re riding a bike or skateboard to protect your head.”

“I don’t even have a skateboard,” Will said.

“If you get one,” Marshall answered. This time she couldn’t miss the clear strain in his voice. The man was at the end of his endurance and probably wanted nothing more than to be alone with his pain.

“We really do need to leave,” Andie said quickly. “Is there anything else I can do to help you before we leave?”

He shook his head, then winced a little as if the motion hurt. “You’ve done more than enough already.”

“Try to get some rest, if you can. I’ll check in with you tomorrow and also bring something for your lunch.”

He didn’t exactly look overjoyed at the prospect. “I don’t suppose I can say anything to persuade you otherwise, can I?”

“You’re a wise man, Sheriff Bailey.”

Will giggled. “Where’s your gold and Frankenstein?”

Marshall blinked, obviously as baffled as she was, which only made Will giggle more.

“Like in the Baby Jesus story, you know. The wise men brought the gold, Frankenstein and mirth.”

She did her best to hide a smile. This year Will had become fascinated with the small carved Nativity set she bought at a thrift store the first year she moved out of her grandfather’s cheerless house.

“Oh. Frankincense and myrrh. They were perfumes and oils, I think. When I said Sheriff Bailey was a wise man, I just meant he was smart.”

She was a little biased, yes, but she couldn’t believe even the most hardened of hearts wouldn’t find her son adorable. The sheriff only studied them both with that dour expression.

He was in pain, she reminded herself. If she were in his position, she wouldn’t find a four-year-old’s chatter amusing, either.

“We’ll see you tomorrow,” she said again. “Call me, even if it’s the middle of the night.”

“I will,” he said, which she knew was a blatant fib. He would never call her.

She had done all she could, short of moving into his house—kids, pets and all.

She gathered the children part of that equation and ushered them out of the house. Darkness came early this close to the winter solstice, but the Jacobs family’s Christmas lights next door gleamed through the snow.

In the short time she’d been inside his house, Andie had forgotten most of her nervousness around Marshall. Perhaps it was his injury that made him feel a little less threatening to her—though she had a feeling that even if he’d suffered two broken legs in that accident, the sheriff of Lake Haven County would never be anything less than dangerous.

CHAPTER TWO

MARSH WAITED UNTIL he heard the door close behind Andrea Montgomery and her children before he allowed himself to grimace and release the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

His entire body hurt like a mother trucker, as if somebody had been pummeling him for the last, oh, twenty-two hours. He couldn’t pinpoint a single portion of his anatomy that wasn’t throbbing right about now.

Though the surgery to set and pin the multiple fractures in his foot and ankle had taken place in the early hours of the morning, his head still felt foggy from the anesthesia and the pain meds they had thrust upon him afterward.

Oddly, the leg wasn’t as painful as the abrasions on his face and hands where he had scraped pavement on the way down. Some of his pain was probably the inevitable adrenaline crash that always hit after a critical incident.

He drew in a deep breath of air that still smelled like his neighbor, sweet as spring wildflowers on a rain-washed meadow.

He hated that he was now her pity project, thanks to her sense of obligation to his sister. He knew that was the only reason she had come by. Wyn must have blackmailed her into helping him. What other reason could she have for doing it?

Andrea Montgomery didn’t like him. He wasn’t sure what he’d done to her, but in their few previous interactions she had always seemed cold and unfriendly to him. He would have figured her for the last person to come to his rescue. Few people were strong enough to withstand pressure from Wyn when she was at her most persuasive, though.

He didn’t want his neighbor and her kids to come back the next day. Short of locking the door, how could he prevent it?

Less than a day ago, he had been under the wholly misguided impression that he had most facets of his life under control.

He had a family he loved, a widowed mother who had just found happiness again and remarried, a brother he admired and respected, a sister who was now engaged to his best friend, another one who was suddenly passionate about saving the world. He lived in the most beautiful place on earth and he had a position of great responsibility that he had worked very hard to earn.

Yeah, he had some in-house personnel problems in the sheriff’s department—the most urgent concern one that involved a significant amount of missing cash in a drug case—but he was dealing with them.

He certainly had a few enemies among the criminal element in his county. Who in law enforcement didn’t? Suspects he had investigated and arrested would probably top that list, followed by the people who loved them.

A few powerful people were on that list as well, including Bill Newbold, a wealthy rancher and county commissioner Marsh had had a run-in with a few weeks earlier over a neighbor’s claim he was overreaching his water rights.

Marsh could have handled that matter a little more delicately, but he’d never much liked Newbold and figured the man used his political position to line his own pockets. Attempted vehicular homicide, though? He couldn’t countenance it.

Maybe he was being too naive.

Marshall would never claim his life was perfect. He had made his share of mistakes—one huge one that was never far from his mind, especially lately. But he never expected to become a target of deadly force, until somebody in a snowy parking lot set out to show him how very wrong he was.

When he closed his eyes, he could still hear the sound of that engine gunning, the tires spinning on slush and gravel.

It wasn’t an accident caused by weather and nerves, despite what the investigator with the state police wanted to believe. How could it be? Someone had lured him to an abandoned gas station on the outskirts of Shelter Springs, baiting the trap with the promise of a lead in a long-cold missing persons case he worked when he first started at the Lake Haven Sheriff’s Department as a deputy fresh out of the military.

When he arrived, of course no one had been there. Marsh had walked around the dilapidated building to see if he was missing something and that was when he heard the engine gun from behind him. He turned just as the SUV headed straight for him and had barely been able to leap away at the last minute to avoid a direct hit.

He hadn’t been quite fast enough and the vehicle had struck his right leg. The combination of the impact and his own attempt to twist away had done a number on his leg. The X-ray looked like somebody had smashed his leg with a hammer, and the grim tally included a compound fracture of his ankle and multiple smaller fractures all the way up to below his knee.

He had been too busy trying not to pass out from the pain and hadn’t caught much that would identify the vehicle, except the color—white—and the general make—American-made late-model small SUV.

As for the driver, in the dark and the snow and from Marshall’s angle on the ground, he had seen nothing except a dark shape wearing a ski mask. He did have one small piece of evidence he hoped would lead in the right direction, but it was too early to tell.

The state police investigator seemed to think the anonymous tipster had chickened out at the last minute and tried to drive away but slid into Marshall because of the snowy conditions and had subsequently panicked and raced off into the night.

Marsh wasn’t buying it. Why insist on meeting there, in a relatively isolated spot without security cameras or witnesses?

No. Somebody had tried to take him out.

He sat back on the sofa, head pounding and his eyes gritty with exhaustion.

Why?

That was the question he couldn’t get out of his head. What the hell was all this about? Who hated him enough to want him gone?

He took a sip of water and shifted on the sofa, fruitlessly searching for a more comfortable spot.

He hated this, sitting here helpless instead of going after the son of a bitch who had done this to him. Worse, he was on mandatory leave for at least three weeks, since Newbold had pushed the other commissioners to insist he take sick leave until the New Year.

They couldn’t stop him from investigating on his own. He would make a list and start eliminating suspects, one by one. Cade would help him and so would Ruben Morales, his second in command.

Not right now. He was too damn tired and sore to do much more than sit here and try to find the energy to make it to his bedroom.

His cell phone rang before he could force himself to grab the crutches and get up.

He should have made Andie Montgomery leave it somewhere out of his reach. He thought about ignoring it, but she was right, there were about a hundred missed calls and texts on there. It seemed cowardly to continue ignoring all of them.

He glanced at the readout and saw it was Wynona. With a sigh, he picked it up.

“Hey, Wyn,” he said.

“About time you answered your phone! I was just about to pack Pete into the car and drive down there.”

“Glad you didn’t. We’ve got a storm moving in fast.”

“So do we, but what else am I supposed to do when you won’t call me back? For all I knew, you were lying on the floor unconscious somewhere.”

How humiliating, that Andrea Montgomery with the lovely eyes had found him after that little spill. Had she called Wyn the moment she left the house to tell her?

“My phone didn’t have a charge. Sorry to worry you. I’m not on the floor. I’m currently getting ready to eat what looks like some delicious stew made by your friend.”

“Andie stopped by to check on you? Oh, I’m so glad. I didn’t like the idea of you in that house alone, just hours after surgery.”

“It was totally unnecessary for you to hire a babysitter for me. I can take care of myself.”

“Extenuating circumstances. So tell me what happened. All I know is what I’ve heard from Cade, bits and pieces I’ve had to pry out of him.”

He would rather she didn’t know anything at all, but Wyn always seemed to have her ear to the ground. Until a few months earlier, she had been a police officer herself and had many connections in the local law enforcement community—not to mention that she was engaged to his best friend, who just happened to be the chief of police of Haven Point.

And, yeah, the two of them being together still freaked him out, though they seemed happy enough.

“What have you heard?”

“Something about you heading out to meet a CI and ending up on the wrong side of the CI’s grille.”

“Yeah. That’s about the size of it.”

“And the guy behind the wheel just sped off? You didn’t get any kind of a look at him that might help identify him?”

“Not really.”

He didn’t tell her he was able to get a partial plate, which was how Ruben, working under the radar, was able to ascertain the vehicle was reported stolen from a Boise box store parking lot two days earlier.

Wyn didn’t need to know all the details of the investigation—at least not until he had something concrete to go on.

“We’ve got a few leads we’re following, but it’s early days yet in the investigation.”

“You shouldn’t have any leads. You’re supposed to be taking it easy.”

He glanced around his family room, where he had a feeling he would be spending entirely too much time for the immediate future.

“I couldn’t be taking it any more easy than I am right now, unless I were comatose.”

“Good. I’m sure that’s just what the doctor ordered.”

It was, but he also didn’t want to admit that to his bossy younger sister.

“What do you need? Gelato from Carmela’s? Barbara Serrano’s zuppa tuscano? I can have the Helping Hands hook you up with anything that would help you get through the next few days.”

More than anything, he wanted to be left alone. Knowing his sister, that was a wish that was doomed from the start.

“I don’t need anything. Thanks for worrying about me, but I’m fine, really. I’m managing okay on the crutches. At least I’ve only fallen once.”

“That’s not very reassuring,” Wyn said. He could almost hear the frown in her voice. “I would still feel better if you would let Andrea check in on you, at least these first few days home from the hospital. I know you’re a tough guy, but sometimes even tough guys need a little TLC.”

“I appreciate your concern, but it’s not necessary, really. I’ll be just fine.”

“You’d say that even if you had two broken legs, wouldn’t you?”

“Can’t say. How about we don’t break the other one to test your theory, though?”

Wynona snorted. “Sometimes you’re so much like Dad, it’s freaky.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he answered. He could only try to be half the man John Bailey was. His father had been the best person Marshall knew. He had taught all his sons—and his daughters, come to that—everything they needed to know about being good cops and, more important, how to be decent people.

For a raw, unguarded moment, his heart ached for his father, for lost possibilities, for all the questions he could never ask John now about how to go forward with the rest of his life.

“It is a compliment, mostly. As bad as things were those last few years, the happiest I saw him was that day you won the election last year.”

He wasn’t sure if his father had even understood that Marshall had decided to run for sheriff after John’s good friend announced his retirement. He liked to think so, but his father hadn’t spoken a word since surviving a gunshot wound to the brain on the job.

“I’ll say this for you, though—you’re every bit as stubborn as our darling father. Seriously, what’s the harm in having Andie stop in a few times a day?”

He pictured Andrea with her auburn hair, her big green eyes, that air of fragile loveliness about her that called to a man’s deepest protective impulses. The same impulses that had never brought him anything but trouble.

“It was kind of her to bring dinner tonight, but I barely know the woman, Wynnie. She has enough on her plate with those kids of hers to have to worry about checking up on me.”

“She assured me she doesn’t mind.”

“What else is she going to say to you?” he pointed out. “You took a bullet for her.”

“Not really. It only grazed me.”

“Still. The woman obviously feels a great sense of obligation to you. It doesn’t seem fair to emotionally blackmail her into helping out your brother.”

“Oh, stop it. You think I don’t know what you’re trying to do, turning this around to make it seem like I did something wrong by asking her to help me out, since I can’t be there?”

“Not wrong. Just not necessary.”

“I get that you want to go into hermit mode and keep everyone away while you hunker down and lick your wounds. Cade would do the same thing.”

“What’s wrong with that?” he muttered.

She sighed. “Face it, my brother, you need help. You’ve got a badly broken leg that requires serious pain medication. You live alone and you can’t get around well or go to the store or shovel your own driveway. Since you were inconsiderate enough to get hurt when none of the members of your family can step up to help, having Andie stop by a few times a day is the next best thing, short of hiring a CNA to be with you around the clock.”

He didn’t answer, simply because he couldn’t come up with any words to counter her argument. He wanted to think it was the pain medication making his head feel like somebody had stuffed it full of steel wool, but he had a feeling it might have been more than that.

Maybe, just maybe, there was a slim chance his sister was right on this one.

“If the situation had been reversed,” she pressed, “you would have insisted on finding one of your friends to check on me.”

“Right. And who knows?” he said drily. “You might have ended up engaged to one of them.”

Laughter rippled through the phone. “Life is crazy, isn’t it?”

The last twenty-four hours had been the craziest he had endured in a long time.

“I know you don’t want Andie there, but it’s only for a few days and it would make me feel better, until I can finish things up here and come back to keep an eye on you. I’ll try to speak to my thesis adviser tomorrow and see if I can sneak away early.”

“Don’t do that.” He knew how important Wynona considered this dream of taking her life in a new direction. He wouldn’t be able to stomach the guilt if she had trouble with her graduate studies because of him.

“So will you let Andie come back?”

He sighed. Apparently he was no more immune to emotional blackmail than his lovely neighbor. “Fine. She can come back.”

“Thanks. Seriously. That’s a huge relief to me. Cade says he’ll stop in when he can, but you know how crazy things are this time of year.”

The sheriff’s department was the same. He had a million things to do before the end of the year—and that wasn’t counting the investigation into the missing evidence.

Damn Bill Newbold anyway. How was Marsh supposed to endure three weeks of enforced medical leave?

As an elected position, the sheriff of Lake Haven County technically reported to the voting public. The county commission couldn’t legally stop him from reporting to work—but the county commission oversaw all county departments and had budgetary control over his department. Newbold was pissed enough right now that Marsh wouldn’t put it past the man to do all he could to block the badly needed deputy pay increase Marsh had been wrangling for since his election.

For the sake of his department, he could roll over for a few weeks, do as much work as possible from home.

“I’ve got to run,” Wynona said. “Pete apparently needs to go out. Are you sure you’re all right alone tonight?”

“Perfectly.”

“I’ll have to take your word on that. Be nice to Andie, okay? You know things haven’t been easy for her.”

Yeah, he knew. His gut twisted. Detective Robert Warren had sat in the county jail for months after his plea deal and had been transferred to the state penitentiary only a few weeks earlier. Marsh had purposely kept his interactions with the man to a minimum and had made sure Warren had no cause to claim his treatment at the Lake Haven County Jail was anything less than proper and humane, especially considering the sheriff’s own personal connection to one of his victims. Wynona.

It was one thing to know in the abstract what Warren had done to Andrea Montgomery. Facts on a report, testimony during his sentencing hearing. It was something else entirely when he thought about that soft, sweet-smelling woman and her cute kids having to live in fear for the better part of a year because she had once trusted the wrong man.

CHAPTER THREE

“THESE ARE ABSOLUTELY PERFECT,” Andie exclaimed the next day as she looked at the cheery watercolors laid out on her neighbor’s kitchen table, a garden of flowers blooming with soft, lovely color to take the edge off the wintry day.

She shook her head in amazement. “We had one short conversation about you designing something for me, that’s all, yet you came back with exactly the right concept for my clients.”

“Oh, I’m so happy you think something will work!” Louise Jacobs glowed with pleasure. “I’ve never done anything like this before. Ever. I’ve always just painted for my own enjoyment, really. It was such a challenge—but a wonderful one.”

“I knew you could do it. I have loved the watercolors you sell at Point Made Flowers and Gifts and I had a suspicion my clients in Boise would, too. It’s the perfect mood and tone for their natural remedy spa services, exactly what I wanted, and I am certain they’re going to love it.”

“I hope so.”

“Trust me. I’ve been trying for weeks to capture the right tone and mood for their website redesign and ad campaign, but nothing seemed to feel right. I couldn’t get to the heart of it, but you’ve managed it. You have a gift, my friend.”

Louise beamed. “I’m so happy you like them.”

Andie saw the possibility of a very successful partnership moving forward. “If you’re all right with it, I’ll buy each one for the price we talked about.”

“Oh, you don’t have to pay me anything. I was happy to do it. I should pay you, actually. I needed the distraction and it was so nice to be back in my studio. I haven’t been able to pick up my brushes in months. Not since...”

Her voice trailed off, eyes bleak with grief. Andie touched her hand. “I’m so sorry, my dear. How are you doing?”

Louise looked down at the bouquet of watercolors for a moment, then offered a strained smile. “I’ll be glad when the holidays are over. Everyone told me how hard all the firsts would be. It’s so true.”

“Yes. It is.”

Jason had died in November, the week before Thanksgiving. Andie had no clear idea how she’d made it through that first December. She had been in a fog of shock and disbelief that her perfect world had imploded so wildly.

Last December had been tough in its own way, for reasons she didn’t want to think about.

Louise and Herm’s only daughter had died just five months earlier. No doubt the wound still felt jagged and raw.

“I wish we didn’t have to celebrate the holidays this year, but Herm wants us to go ahead with all our usual traditions, even though none of us has much holiday spirit. He thinks we need to build new traditions with Christopher, now that he’s living with us.”

Andie looked around the comfortable open-plan house, artfully decorated with greenery, ribbons, candles in slim holders. “It’s so warm and cozy in here. I’m sure that’s helped him feel more at home.”

As if on cue, a thin, gangly boy with shoulder-length dark hair and a semipermanent scowl wandered into the kitchen. Louise’s thirteen-year-old grandson stopped short when he spotted the two of them.

“Oh. I didn’t know somebody was here.”

“Hi, Christopher.” Andie smiled at the boy, whose scowl seemed to deepen in response. “No classes at the middle school today?”

His blue-eyed gaze flashed to his grandmother for an instant before turning back to her. “Um, sick day. I think I’m coming down with something.”

Judging by his bloodshot eyes and his greenish features, she suspected his sickness might be morning-after regret. Once in a while after a bad day on the job, her husband used to go on a bender and his symptoms were remarkably similar.

“Oh dear. I hope it’s nothing serious.”

He gave a halfhearted shrug. “Guess we’ll see. Nana, what’s there to eat?”

Louise pursed her lips, her eyes worried. “I made Scottish shortbread this morning.”

He gave a revolted look. “Isn’t that like head cheese?”

“That’s sweetbread, dear. Shortbread is basically a bar cookie made with butter and sugar. They’re in the tin.”

“Right here?”

She nodded and he opened the tin. After a moment’s consideration, he picked up a couple of them and took a bite from one as he opened the refrigerator and stared inside.

“If you’re ready for lunch, I can make you a sandwich or there’s leftover chicken noodle soup from last night I could warm up,” Louise offered.

He closed the refrigerator door. “This is probably good,” he said around the mouthful of cookie. “I’m not that hungry.”

“You can’t just eat a cookie,” Louise exclaimed. “Especially if you’re coming down with something.”

“I said I wasn’t that hungry, okay?” he snapped and abruptly stalked out of the kitchen.

Louise watched him go, eyes glassy with unshed tears. All her pride and excitement about the watercolors and Andie’s approval of them seemed to have drained away during the short interaction with her grandson.

“How is he doing?” Andie asked gently.

One of those tears slipped out and slid down her friend’s cheek and she brushed it away with an impatient hand. “His mother’s dead and his father wants nothing to do with him. He’s stuck living in a new town he hates with his boring old grandparents who have never raised a boy and don’t know how to talk to him. He hates school, hates his teachers, hates doing homework. He’s made a few friends, but...” Her voice trailed off.

“But?”

“I’m not sure they’re the nicest young people. They seem to run wild at all hours of the day and night, with no parental supervision that I can see.”

Louise seemed so disheartened that Andie couldn’t help giving her a little hug.

“He’ll make it through this. Please don’t worry. Time is the great healer. It’s a truism because it’s just that—true. That’s all he needs. He’s got you and Herm, two of the very best people I know. That’s far more than many children have in similar circumstances.”

Certainly more than Andie had known. Oh, how she wished she could have had someone like Louise in her life, someone sweet and kind and welcoming.

“He’s a good boy,” Louise said, wiping away another tear. “He’s just so angry all the time.”

Andie remembered that anger after her own mother died, along with confusion and fear and overwhelming grief. Puberty was tough enough, all raging hormones and intensified emotions. The loss of a parent made that transitional time that much harder, even when the parent hadn’t been the best a kid could ask for.

“I’m sorry,” Louise said after a moment. “You didn’t come here to listen to my problems.”

“That’s what friends do.”

“How are you these days?”

She would much rather talk about Louise’s problems, any day of the week. She knew what was behind the question. Everyone in Haven Point knew about the incident over the summer when the situation she had tried to escape by moving here from Portland had caught up with her, when she had been held at gunpoint by the man who had raped her the previous year, then stalked her for months.

Andie was doing her best to move beyond her past so she could work toward building a new future with her children here. She knew Louise’s question was offered in kindness, but she really didn’t want to talk about Rob Warren and the hell he had put her through.

“Everything’s great,” she said, pinning on a bright smile. “I’m really looking forward to Christmas in Haven Point. I can’t imagine a prettier place to spend the holiday. It’s perfect.”

“It really is, isn’t it?” Louise smiled softly. “The lake seems to change colors every day with the shifting winter light.”

“It must be fun to paint it this time of year.”

“It is.” Distracted, Louise looked down at her watercolors and Andie hoped she was thinking about taking her paints out to the water’s edge to try capturing that stunning blue.

Andie had taken to carrying her camera on her morning snowshoe walks along the river, catching birds flitting through winter-bare branches, the delicate filigree of ice along the riverbanks, the play of sunlight reflecting on the snow and filtering through the fringy pine boughs.

She had found peace here over the last few months, a calm she had needed desperately.

“I saw in the paper that our neighbor next door had an accident of some kind,” Louise said.

Now, there was someone who didn’t give her peace. Marshall Bailey. “Yes. He was struck by a hit-and-run driver a few days ago and ended up with a badly broken leg.”

“Oh, the poor man! Charlene must be having fits!”

“I don’t think Marshall wants his mother to know until she and Mike return from their honeymoon.”

Louise gave an approving nod. “Good decision. Why give her needless worry?”

“I agree.”

“So who’s watching over him?”

Andie raised her hand. “Well, I don’t know that I’d go as far as to say I’m watching over him. Wyn just asked me to check on him a few times a day. I’m heading there after I pick Will up from preschool.”

She felt too foolish to add that she wanted her son to come along as a buffer. “It would be helpful if you and Herm would keep an eye on things, too.”

“Oh, of course. We would be glad to do that. His mother is one of my dearest friends, though she pulled away a little after poor John had his accident.” She paused. “Do you think Marshall would enjoy some of my shortbread? I made plenty.”

“I’m sure he would. I can take it to him, if you’d like.”

“Thank you! Let me find a container.”

She bustled around the kitchen for a moment and ended up producing two tins printed with smiling families of snowmen.

“Here you go. A box for him and one for you and your children, if you’d care for it.”

“Oh, thank you! They will love it.”

These kind little gestures neighbors did for each other here always warmed her heart. She had enjoyed living in Portland. It was a beautiful, vibrant town filled with interesting people, restaurants, shops. But in all the years she had lived there after striking out on her own, it had never really felt as much like home as Haven Point, even though she and the children had been here less than six months.

She glanced at the whimsical owl clock on the wall. “I should go. Will is going to be done soon from preschool. I don’t know where the time went!”

“I’m so glad we had the chance to visit a little. You made me feel a little better.”

“I’m glad.” She hugged Louise, then slid her friend’s lovely collection of watercolors into the portfolio she had provided. “And thank you so much for these. I can’t wait to show them to my clients.”

“I do hope they like them,” Louise said again, her expression anxious.